Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest, Revised Edition of Us by Kate Bornstein

Kate Bornstein's memoir-cum-manifesto Gender Outlaw--a perennially strong backlist title since 1995--is now available in a revised edition with a new preface by the author and an updated package. 

Trans performance artist, playwright, and activist Kate Bornstein guides readers on a funny, insightful, and wonderfully scenic journey across the frontiers of gender and identity. With her signature humor, honesty, and outrageous flair, Bornstein's coming-of-age and transformation from heterosexual male to lesbian woman, as well as a fascinating and deeply provocative investigation into our notions of gender, the myths attached to "male" and "female", and the penalties that befall not only those who transgress the definitions but anyone who blindly conforms to them. Whether she is describing the nuts and bolts of her sex-change surgery or outing the hidden gender messages in popular culture, Bornstein pushes us gently but profoundly to the farther borders of the gender frontier.

"I know I'm not a man . . . and I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not a woman, either. . . . . The trouble is, we're living in a world that insists we be one or the other." With these words, Kate Bornstein ushers readers on a funny, fearless, and wonderfully scenic journey across the terrains of gender and identity. On one level, Gender Outlaw details Bornstein's transformation from heterosexual male to lesbian woman, from a one-time IBM salesperson to a playwright and performance artist. But this particular coming-of-age story is also a provocative investigation into our notions of male and female, from a self-described nonbinary transfeminine diesel femme dyke who never stops questioning our cultural assumptions.

Gender Outlaw was decades ahead of its time when it was first published in 1994. Now, some twenty-odd years later, this book stands as both a classic and a still-revolutionary work--one that continues to push us gently but profoundly to the furthest borders of the gender frontier.

• Softcover
• 320 Pages